From
CNET News.com [March 26, 2008]:
Google added YouTube to the list of services for which it provides free analytics.
YouTube Insight is designed to give content creators, content partners and advertisers more information on the performance of their videos, beyond how many views it gets, comments, favorites, and other basic data currently displayed, according to Tracy Chan, a YouTube product manager. Google already offers analytics for ads, Google Reader, and other services.
YouTube Insight offers data on viewers and location (such as by state in the U.S.) and how viewing patterns change over time. Data is displayed in a map and on a timeline, which are interactive; changing the settings on one impacts the other. YouTube Insight can show how advertising impacts viewership; what time of day or days of the week generate the most views of a video; or which version of a video performs the best. The data is updated daily.
The
SearchEngineWatch.com blog points to the insights provided by the free tool:
1. how often a video's viewed in different geographic regions
2. how popular it is relative to all videos in a market over a period of time
3. how long until a video becomes popular (the fuzziest of fuzzy metrics)
4. what happens to video views as popularity peaks
I'd be curious to know how nonprofits in particular will respond to the analytics data generated by YouTube Insight. Specifically:
(1) Will having access to this new data prove to be of any concrete value to NPOs?
(2) If so, how do these additional insights help organizations to optimize their campaigns, to boost online and/or offline conversions?
In case you missed it, there's an ongoing discussion on TechSoup about
YouTube's free fundraising program for nonprofits.
It'll be interesting to see how YouTube Insight plays out as an analytics tool -- especially in the nonprofit world.
Yann